When a retarding mechanism and a body suspended therefrom are launched from an aircraft or missile at high speed, deployment of a decelerator may cause a severe shock due to sudden retardation. Such shocks are often sufficient to cause structural failure of the retarding device or damage of the payload to which it is attached. Prior art retarding devices utilize parachutes, metal fin stabilizers and ballute technology to decelerate bomblets in progressive steps and to reduce the incidence of damage. A common difficulty with such devices has been that excessive speed at the time of dispersal often overstresses the decelerator and fails it. For example, parachutes provide drag at speeds below 1500 feet per second but upon opening suddenly at high speed the lines tangle, become disoriented or break. Parachutes are also unfit for use in wooded areas since they get hung up in branches and shrubs, thus preventing the load from impacting the target.
Metal fin stabilizers provide acceptable deceleration where release velocities are under 1600 feet per second but often structurally fail at higher speeds, and cause tumbling, unstable trajectories and insufficient dispersion patterns where wide scattering is desired.
The combination of a parachute and balloon referred to as ballute technology such as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4215836 issued to the same inventor herein provides many advantages over the prior art. The invention in this case provides further and significant improvements over the concept covered by the noted patent.